June 2014 Health Newsletter

As the temperature rises so too does the risk for exercise related heat stroke and performance drop. The human body doesn't perform optimally when it becomes too hot. New research shows that using cooling techniques such as ice vests or cold water bathing/applications before and/or during workouts increases performance. Your body requires significant energy and blood flow to keep your body from overheating. Any external assistance with the cooling process provides the body with additional energy and blood flow to exercising muscles. Various cooling methods were studied including the use of cooling vests and cold packs, consumption of cold water or ice slurries, immersion in a cold water bath or a combination. Researchers also studied the effects on performance comparing pre-exercise applications vs. during exercise applications. Researchers found while pre-exercise and during exercise applications of cold increased performance, a combination of the two worked best. One of the most effective applications was wearing an ice chest during exercise along with a combination of pre-exercise techniques. Doing so improved athletic performance by close to 7 percent. In addition to the increased performance, cooling techniques reduce potential for heat stroke - a very common side effect of exercise, especially in the summer heat.


If you're a parent, you're aware of the vast amount of food advertising targeting children. In fact, you might be more than just a little annoyed with companies advertising their unhealthy food products to younger children, your children. However, new research coming from Ireland indicates the parent's eating habits are the most important predictor of what foods including unhealthy foods children are aware of and recognize. There's no question that the advertising of unhealthy foods and the fact that unhealthy foods tend to contain sugars and fats - something us humans enjoy - has an impact on children's knowledge and interest in those foods. However, this new research shows that ultimately parents have the most influence on unhealthy food awareness.  So if you're concerned about your children's dietary habits and influences (and you should be), check your pantry and your own dietary habits and ensure you're a positive influence - your children are watching!

New research in Australia confirms the advice of many dermatologists to their patients - to avoid the aging effects of the sun on your skin, use sunscreen. While the benefits of sunscreen are well known when it comes to preventing sunburns and lowering the risk of skin cancer, researchers said rigorous studies were previously lacking on how sunscreen use affects the signs of skin aging, or photoaging. Photoaging happens after long-term exposure to ultraviolet radiation, which penetrates the skin and can cause collagen to break down and DNA to mutate. Long term effects of photoaging include wrinkles, leathery skin tone, loss of the skin's elasticity and spider veins. The new study, conducted at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research analyzed data from 903 adults younger than 55 who were followed between 1992 and 1996. Half of the participants were instructed to put sunscreen of SPF 15 or greater on their head, neck, arms and hands every morning, and to reapply when necessary. The other half used sunscreen according to their own discretion. At the start and end of the study, the researchers measured photoaging using the skin on the back of each person's left hand. The researchers found that over four years, the skin condition of people who were told to use sunscreen daily evidenced no detectable changes, once other sun-related factors were taken into account. Beta carotene, which was also given to some of the participants, did not seem to have any protective effect on skin aging, however.


A new review of several prior studies finds that drinking more water when dieting may increase weight loss. Researchers at the Berlin School of Public Health in Germany, compared eleven previous studies on weight and water consumption. Three of the studies tied increased water intake to enhanced weight loss. One study found that women who increased their daily water consumption while dieting, lost more weight than those who drank less than a liter a day. Another found that participants who drank an extra two cups of water before a meal lost an average of four pounds more than a group that didn't. Still, researchers said there is not enough evidence to say for certain that drinking more water increases weight loss and it’s unclear how the increased water consumption might help dieters. The review authors speculated that the water provides a feeling of fullness, leading dieters to reduce their caloric intake. It’s also possible that the additional water increases the energy expenditure of the body; an idea called "water-induced thermogenesis." However, the researchers pointed out that the studies didn’t always show that people who drank more water necessarily weighed less. Some of the studies indicated that obese or overweight individuals drank more water than their thinner counterparts. Ultimately the review’s authors recommended larger experiments to examine water’s potential benefits while dieting.